VAMPIRES slunk into dark corners on sight of the caramelly whole roasted garlic as I took them from the cinders and unfurled their shiny foil blankets. Hard to imagine that I had lived for 20 years before even tasting the pungent, plump cloves. Now I eat them whole, though not quite raw, and movies like Twilight and Nosferatu the Vampire no longer frighten me.
Like most things truly South African, you won’t often find chakalaka in the pages of our effortlessly garnished food magazines, although I don’t doubt that one of these days this South African workman’s dish will be ‘discovered’ by the diamante-swirled damsels of Posh Galore, with sundry instructions on how to change it into something else.
The German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued that a diet consisting predominantly of them “leads to the use of liquor”, which would be enough for some of us to stockpile them, just in case.
Tony Jackman will be cooking at Societi Bistro, 50 Orange Street, Gardens, in Cape Town, on Saturday August 28.
We like chicken. We love chicken. When we see a chicken preening its feathers, our mind quickly pops up an image of it defeathered and roasted to gleaming, succulent perfection. We see its breast removed, slit asunder, filled with something yummy, closed, wrapped up and baked.
It was one of those moments when you wake up and realise where you really are. On a soccer field, yes. But no crowd, no glaring stadium lights. Just a modest small-town soccer field on the edge of town, and it’s Sunday morning coming down on a boy’s wild imagination.
I interviewed a restaurateur last year who kept referring to his four restaurants as ‘my shops’. It was all I needed to know about the guy, apart from the too-much-bling and the smile that wasn’t really.
Why are restaurateurs in this country unable to find our own themes and names for things? Tapas is not African. Small portions aren’t either. And there is one truly glaring omission from this supposedly African menu: there is no red meat on the menu other than a tiny portion of bobotie. In Africa, land of the cow, the goat and the buffalo, there is no meat on a showcase African menu. This is like not having soy sauce on a Chinese menu, or omitting the spices in a curry. Come on, we’re Africans, we eat meat.
Peruse the annual awards lists of the last 10 years and you’ll find many examples of restaurants that were once just the place to get to, dahlings, their chefs’ names thrown about as if the Gods had come down to save our palates. Then they slip down the lists until, in a year or two, they drop out of the top 10 and are often never heard of again.
You can send me an attachment of a picture of a chocolate and a note saying “Jane has sent you a chocolate!” but in fact what Jane has sent me is a thumbnail picture of a chocolate which is as much use to me as an email promising me 30 million smackers.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. “We thought you were on fire.”
There will come a time when a new generation, or just the present generation a decade or two older, will talk disparagingly of the food fads of the 1990s and [...]
The chef came out before a particular course and explained, somewhat nervously, that the kingklip was to be served raw tonight. Riiiiiiight, we muttered, dubious, looking left and right as if wondering where the candid camera was.
The problem with New Year parties is trying to stay sober enough to remember why you’re there. I’ve known people get to midnight on December 31 and wander around aimlessly asking whose birthday it is, or why everyone is so exciteable.
If you live at the Cape and love seafood, there are times when you have to have your bank manager abducted in the pry of night and taken by masked men to some greasy spoon cesspit while you go out to your favourite local seafood spots. I have three I rate highly…
This year’s Christmas Eve dinner menu has a vaguely Cape touch: Amarula cream chicken liver pate, miniature roast turkey with a very Christmassy stuffing, and, instead of the obvious (and yummy) Christmas pudding, Cape brandy tart served with brandy butter and maraschino cherries to give it a festive touch.
The key to perfect chips is a quartet of musts: The oil must be hot enough for the potatoes to produce an instant bubble as they go in. The raw chips must be absolutely dry. The pan must be shaken as soon as the chips go in, to separate them and avoid them sticking to one another. And there must not be too many chips in the basket – give them space and do them in batches.
DURBAN CURRY is beloved of all South Africans for its fire, as passionate as the humid, sun-baked city that is home to South Africa’s large and vibrant Indian community.
Cape Malay curries are many and varied, but you cannot leave the city without trying at least one authentic lamb or chicken curry, or a mutton or chicken salomi (roti).
CAPE TOWN was built on spice and wine, and the city is as robust with flavour today as it was at its founding as a victualling station in the mid-17th century.
So yes, with a heavy heart I would hear the truck start up outside and rattle and grind up the hill, its contents shaking and baaing like, well, so many sheep, then turn on the gas and get cooking, because I’m human, I’m South African, and, with few exceptions, we eat meat.
Make no misake, Bukhara is right back on top of its game and is undoubtedly once more one of the top dining options in the Western Cape.
OK, most of us won’t go back to our tables with a plate of smoked salmon, bacon, stewed fruit and cheddar, but my point is that there might be ways to make more sense of it all. So I thought about it all and came up with a four-course menu for a Sunday brunch, based on some of the things you tend to find on such breakfast spreads.
How on earth is 9th Avenue Bistro, which has a nondescript al fresco area overlooking a plain-as-chips parking lot, better than the Tasting Room at le Quartier Francais or Overture with its world-beating view and Margot Janse’s fabulous cuisine? I don’t buy it.
But the courgettes developed a life of their own. They grew and grew, and then grew some more. I lined the hallway with them, and the tannies would squeal on sight of a row of priapic marrows.
These developments spring up with increasing regularity, and you have to think that one day we will wake up, look around, grab the nearest handrail and yell, ‘Where am I? What have they done with Cape Town?’
If your pasta is less than perfectly al dente, scowling, toothless crones swathed in black cross themselves when you come near, then scurry away down dark alleyways burbling in Latin.
Being at the Sun King’s newest venue whisked me right back to the ground-wetting for the Cape Sun Hotel aeons ago, when Anneline Kriel, then Sun Queen, stepped out of a limo in the rain and I nearly choked on a sliver of Parma ham.
I reckon we’re made of tamarind and mustard seed, coconut and aniseed, most of which went into the Indian-inspired dinner I put together last Friday evening.
The superb chicken liver parfait with pineapple chutney is back, and also new is a beetroot carpaccio with a cross-pattern of mild horseradish. An inspired dish, gorgeous to look at and even better to eat.
I do know that Henry had lived a full and very active life, however brief. He had the run of a sizeable garden, and seemed ever to be foraging for yet more morsels with which to fatten himself up for our table. With hindsight, this was rather thoughtful of him, as he turned out to be succulent and perfectly tender, his skin crisp and golden.